


Tuesday

by JDNiemand



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-21
Updated: 2014-03-21
Packaged: 2018-01-16 11:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1346290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JDNiemand/pseuds/JDNiemand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been Tuesday in Night Vale for several weeks now, and Cecil is getting a bit fed up. Plus, a new format for the Night Vale Daily Journal, a campaign announcement from Hiram McDaniels, and a look at sports news.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tuesday

In space, no one can hear you scream. On Earth, no one can hear you stop screaming. Welcome to Night Vale.

 

Hello listeners. Let’s just get the obvious out of the way first: yes, it is still Tuesday. Just like it was Tuesday yesterday, and Tuesday the day before that, and Tuesday every day for the past several weeks. This morning when I checked my phone I still had some glimmer of hope that it would be Thursday, or that maybe Wednesday would have been reinstated, but no. Still Tuesday. And so I’m still here, at work, because I only get weekends off, and it’s… still… Tuesday. At least I’m getting paid more. Carlos and his scientists are still working in their lab trying to figure out how to move us on, but as all their research is erased when time resets, they’re finding it a little difficult. We’ll bring you more on this story if there’s ever any chance of it no longer being Tuesday any time soon.

 

In other news, Mayoral candidate Hiram McDaniels has pledged to crack down on the game “Dungeons and Dragons” should he win June’s election, and should June come at all what with this neverending plague of Tuesdays. “I find this game extremely offensive,” McDaniels said in a press conference today. “Why are dragons always portrayed as the villains? I find that highly discriminatory and completely inaccurate. Why can’t it be Dungeons and Humans, or, say, Dungeons and Faceless Old Women Who Secretly Live In Your Home? I’m just saying, this kind of speciesist nonsense has got to stop.” When a reporter raised the allegations that Mr McDaniels had murdered Frank Chen, McDaniels, who is a gigantic five-headed dragon, swallowed him whole. There were no follow-up questions.

 

Night Vale’s new Burger King is apparently doing brisk business today, after it announced a Tuesday special of free upgrades to large size meals. The screeching eyeless bat-winged creatures who run it seemed busy in there, though it’s really hard to tell with them, and there were certainly plenty of customers. That’s according to Intern Loretta, who I sent there to pick me up some lunch about a half hour ago. She hasn’t actually come back yet, and when I try to call her my cellphone just makes a loud yelping noise and displays a black screen with the word “NOPE” on it, but I’m sure she’ll return soon. I mean, how long does it take to get a Big King sandwich and a large thing of onion rings, right?

 

An update on the Tuesday situation. Carlos just texted me to say that all his clocks and calendars and anything that can tell the time or date at all have melted. “They just sort of collapsed into quivering puddles,” the text says. “How am I supposed to fix this now? This never happened on any of the previous Tuesdays.” He also asked if I wanted to move our date night this week to tonight, but I told him I can’t. I have to work late on Tuesdays, that’s why we don’t have it then. Hopefully all this will be sorted out soon, we have a reservation for Saturday.

In related news, we’ve had reports that Night Vale residents have been taking advantage of the time loop by engaging in recreational suicide. Citizens have been observed leaping from tall buildings, running in front of cars, and expressing belief in mountains in public, just to see what death feels like. “It’s pretty weird,” said one person we spoke to. “It’s like… I don’t know how to describe it. I put my toaster in the bath yesterday, and suddenly I was alive again this morning. It’s kinda cool, really. You probably need to try it yourself to know what I’m talking about.” The man then cut the rope on the catapult in which he was sitting, flinging himself over a building and out of sight. As a public service announcement, I’d just like to recommend that anyone wishing to try death wear protective clothing - after all, you don’t want to hurt yourself, do you?

 

The Night Vale Daily Journal has announced another series of cost-cutting measures today. According to editor Leanne Hart, the newspaper will save thousands of dollars a year by reprinting old issues. “I mean, look, who needs a newspaper to tell them what happened _that day_ , right?” Ms Hart said. “Like, they were _there_ , weren’t they? They really should know. Stuff that happened years and years ago, though, people might not have heard about that. It’s really a more valuable service, when you think about it.” The new format will launch tomorrow, with a shocking front-page story from November 1963 about the assassination of a U.S. President. Bet you can’t guess which one!

 

And now, traffic. Citizens are reminded that all roads in the greater Night Vale area will be closed this afternoon from 3pm to 6pm, as our wealthiest citizen, Marcus Vansten, needs to go out of town for a business meeting and doesn’t want to get stuck in gridlock. The Sheriff’s Secret Police will be escorting Mr Vansten on his journey through town, just to make sure nobody gets in his way. Mr Vansten is travelling in his gold-plated helicopter, but he will of course be flying close to ground level, just to show off the fact that he has a gold-plated helicopter. Anyone caught on the streets during this time will be given a traffic citation, followed by three months’ imprisonment in the Void.

Meanwhile, for anyone looking to travel on Route 800, be advised that the highway surface is still gibbering and howling with ten thousand gaping mouths, and writhing with twenty thousand grasping hands, clawing at the air and screeching foul blasphemies into the vast, uncaring sky. The Department of Public Safety has sent another highway crew to try and fix the problem - the same highway crew, actually, what with the whole Tuesday thing - but, just as before, they were swiftly devoured by the road surface. “We really should have seen this coming,” said one Department spokesman from his office in a tree in Mission Grove Park, “but, you know, we just thought that maybe it would be different this time. Anyway, there’s always tomorrow, right?” The Department advises that Route 800 should be avoided for all non-essential travel. This has been traffic.

 

Good news for sports fans! The Night Vale Spiderwolves were triumphant in last night’s minor league grudge match against arch rivals, the Desert Bluffs Sunbeams. The “grudge” part of course originated from the Spiderwolves’ last away game, which resulted in a bloodbath following a referee’s ill-judged call of “safe” when the Desert Bluffs pinch-hitter was clearly out - though I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that, listeners, because you were all watching. Trust me. I know. The Spiderwolves crushed the Sunbeams in a perfect 55-0 victory, which one Spiderwolves player attributed to the Secret Police gunship which strafed the stadium halfway through the first inning, killing the Sunbeams’ pitcher and severely hampering their overall strategy. And to those who would point out that the result of this match is meaningless, as time is just going to repeat itself tomorrow and the match will have to be played again, may I just say: shame on you. How dare you let a mere quirk of temporal instability lessen your opinion of our fighting Spiderwolves! In these troubled times, we must take every victory we can get, especially against Desert Bluffs, who as we all know are - oh, sorry, listeners. My program director, Lauren, is staring at me through the window with fixed, glassy eyes and making silent strangling motions with her hands, so… perhaps I should just go to this word from our sponsor.

 

Today’s broadcast is brought to you by electromagnetism! When gravity’s too weak and the nuclear forces are just too strong, you need the right force to do the job, and that force is electromagnetism. Electromagnetism is by far the most versatile force there is! Need to stick your child’s homework assignment to your fridge? Electromagnetism! Want to power your homes and businesses? Electromagnetism is the force for you! Need to broadcast a radio program across thousands of miles and onward into deep space, where it will eventually be discovered by savage and warlike aliens on the very fringes of our galaxy? Look no further than electromagnetism! Wearing a tinfoil hat to prevent the World Government from influencing your thoughts? Then count your lucky stars that their mind control rays run on electromagnetism! Electromagnetism is everywhere: in the air, in the cold vacuum of space, even in your very own body! You literally cannot escape it! So relax, have a seat, and think of all the wonderful things electromagnetism can do for you. Electromagnetism: putting the “fun” in “fun-damental forces”!

 

And now let’s take a look at our community calendar. As you all know, tomorrow is Tuesday again, which means… oh, listeners, I can’t _do_ this any more. I mean, what’s the point of me reading out the news? We all know what’s going to happen. Nothing is changing, or moving forward. “Sure,” you might say, “we aren’t aging, so we might live forever!” But what good will it do, if you’re just living out the same twenty-four hours over and over and over? I’m not going to bother with the Community Calendar. The same things that have just kept happening are going to happen again, and again, and again. We will all be robots, going about absurd rituals that will have no purpose, no impact that will not just be erased in the inevitable reversion to a state of perpetual Tuesday. As I sit here, curled up beneath my desk, weeping at the futility of it all, I can think of nothing else I can do but leave you with… [the weather](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5H8DwJI0uA).

 

Wonderful, joyful news, listeners! Our Tuesday woes are over. The City Council held a press conference just now, in which they admitted they simply forgot to turn Tuesday off. “We keep the switches that control the days of the week in the invisible, constantly teleporting clock tower,” they said, “but then we forgot where it was, and then we found it but we lost the keys, and then we just had so much stuff to deal with, and we had to deal with it over and over again because it kept being Tuesday, and it was just like, _uuuuuugh_ , you know? Anyway, we’ve turned Tuesday off now, so it should all be fixed by tomorrow. That was totally our bad. Oh, also, please forget all that stuff we just said about the invisible clock tower.” Well, there you have it. At long last, this endless string of Tuesdays is at its end, and we can finally move on with our lives. Looks like Carlos and I are going to have our date night after all. It’s good to know that this whole thing was just a simple case of human error… or whatever it is the City Council are. I see it’s the end of my shift now, so I’m going to go home and eagerly wait for a new, non-Tuesday tomorrow.

Stay tuned next for exactly the same thing as yesterday. And on this Tuesday, as all Tuesdays, past, present and future - good night, Night Vale. Good night.

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Night Vale is a production of Commonplace Books. It is written by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor, and produced by Joseph Fink. This fanfic was written by JD Niemand, who has no affiliation with Welcome to Night Vale or Commonplace Books, though he’d really like to.
> 
> Today's weather was Sons and Daughters, by the Decemberists. Find their music at [http://www.decemberists.com/](http://www.decemberists.com).
> 
> Check out <http://www.welcometonightvale.com> for more information on the actual show, as well as all sorts of cool Night Vale stuff you can own. And while you’re there, consider clicking the Donate link. That’d be cool of you.
> 
> Today’s proverb: Smile and the world smiles with you. Please stop smiling. Our cheeks are starting to bleed.


End file.
